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Tuesday, April 22, 2014

Remediation

Last month, I posted about this quilt and the problems I was having with the straight line quilting popping free. I asked for suggestions about how to fix this and ended up with a lot to consider.

Many people suggested I cross hatch it by straight line quilting in the other direction. That had never ever occurred to me but the thought of having to do that on my domestic machine was daunting. And I don't have the right rulers to be able to it on Lola.

Other suggestions were to repair the straight lines that were pulling and then be done with it. Let them love it and enjoy it as it was originally designed. That made me a little itchy because it meant the problem would continue.

Others suggested that I quilt over it on my long arm and then leave in the original stitching. I so wish I had the ability to do that. But the old stitching would make me nuts.

In the end, I pinned the quilt on Lola, put in a charcoal thread so I could distinguish from the original black quilting and did some square quilting on it. I knew I didn't want to do any kind of swirly design that might overlap the original stitching and could be hard to manage.

I quilted it on a Wednesday and it was in the washer Sunday afternoon with all the old stitching taken out. There were memory lines from the straight line quilting but I washed it again two weeks later and it's almost gone. Taking out the stitches was relatively easy and a great project for the evening and was a great excuse NOT to be working on a Lollypop appliqué block.

We head to Toronto next week and I'm happy to be returning the quilt within 3 months of bringing it home. Hopefully it has a number of good years left in it and can provide hours more cuddle time (or tent time for a 3 year old). In the meantime, you all are an incredible source of knowledge and ideas. Thanks to everyone that took the time to suggest a solution and give me something to think about.

I hope you are finding easy and right solutions for any problems you may be having!

Beautiful quilt and what a story this quilt has! I had one a couple years ago that I wasn't happy with the tension on the quilting and slowly redid it block by block. So worth it! Thanks for sharing.Freemotion by the River Linky Party Tuesday

So glad you were able to successfully save this fantastic quilt, first time I saw it I fell in love with it. How happy your DD will be to have it rescued and for her to love for many more years. Cheers Glenda